About New York; The Boxer, The Beating And the Widow

By DAN BARRY

Published: April 13, 2005

CORRECTION APPENDED

MANY years ago, in another New York, a girl named Lucy fell for a boxer. Then he fell, and nothing could raise him: not the roar of the ring crowd, not her prayers from afar. When Benny (Kid) Paret fell that night at Madison Square Garden, he fell for good.

The Kid was known for being able to take a punch. But no one could have withstood those two dozen blows he took to the head, bam-bam-bam, his eyes closed, his body dangling from the rope in lazy crucifixion. They called Emile Griffith the victor, and rushed the unconscious Kid to the hospital.

He died a few days later, leaving a pregnant Lucy, a 2-year-old son and a new home in Miami. He was 24, a kid.

Outrage briefly followed his death, as though the depravity of men pummeling each other for public delight had just been revealed. But writers continue to find life's meaning in the so-called sweet science, and fighters continue to die, including a female boxer less than two weeks ago.

And what of the Kid's widow? Still standing, alone.

With freshly done nails and an uncertainty of heart, Mrs. Paret arrived from Miami on Sunday for tonight's premiere of ''Ring of Fire: The Emile Griffith Story,'' a documentary by Dan Klores and Ron Berger that focuses in part on that 1962 fight, her husband's last. The movie makes her uneasy, the small woman confesses: ''It brings back things I don't want to remember.''

Benny Paret was an illiterate boxer from Cuba, destined to cut sugar cane like his parents if it weren't for those quick fists and that chin like iron. Lucy Hernandez was a teenage nightclub dancer born in Puerto Rico who grew up in New York. He spoke no English; she spoke little Spanish. He loved boxing; she detested it.

By 16, she had already weathered a few knocks. Her mother had died, her sister had committed suicide, her father had remarried, and her stepmother had wanted a clean slate -- so Lucy was kicked out. She paid $5 a week for a shared bedroom in an elderly woman's apartment and made money dancing at Latin clubs like the Tropicana.

One day the Tropicana enlisted some dancers in a Benny Paret fan club and sent them to cheer for the boxer as he dispatched yet another opponent at the St. Nicholas Arena in Harlem. After the fight, Paret sent a thank-you bouquet to one dancer: Lucy.

''We were all there,'' she recalls. ''But I got the flowers.''

A bond formed between the boxer and the dancer, one that transcended language barriers. At 17 she moved into his Bronx apartment, and at 18 she gave birth to their son. A month later, in February 1960, the couple married.

Mrs. Paret, 64, says she has forgotten so much from that time; the address of their apartment on Southern Boulevard, for example, and the names of the songs she once danced to. But she remembers other things. Benny smoked Camels, drank Hennessy with pineapple juice, did a mean mambo. And when he came home from a night's work, she gave him aspirin and an ice pack.

SOMETIMES his face would be so battered that he couldn't sleep on his side, she says. ''The pillow would bother him.''

Paret became a welterweight champion, which helped him buy a house for his family in Miami, where he hoped one day to become a butcher. He clearly needed a future beyond the ring.

In 1961, Paret lost in 10 rounds to Gaspar Ortega in February, got knocked out by Emile Griffith in the 13th round in April, beat Griffith after 15 rounds to regain his title in September -- and then, less than three months later, got knocked out in the 10th round by Gene Fullmer. That year his head rocked like a bobblehead doll's.

Then came his date with Griffith in the Garden: March 24, 1962.

A lot has happened to Lucy Paret since then. She gave birth to another son, Alberto. She returned to Miami. She sold the house and bought a trailer, only to have Hurricane Andrew take it away.

She made no money off the Paret name, because it resurfaced only in gauzy recollections of prizefight rivalries -- Louis-Schmeling, Graziano-Zale, Griffith-Paret -- or on death-by-boxing checklists. So she worked at a thrift store, and then as a cashier at a supermarket.

Now Lucy Paret is back in New York, a retiree, not a dancer. Her nails are done and she wants to find an outfit for the premiere. With cheeks wet from tears, she says she has forgotten a lot about those days but nothing of that night, of her Benny, falling.

Photo: Benny (Kid) Paret died after this fight. (Photo by Associated Press)

Correction: April 14, 2005, Thursday
The About New York column yesterday, about recollections of the boxer Benny (Kid) Paret by his widow, Lucy, misstated the location of the former St. Nicholas Arena, where Paret used to fight. It was on the West Side, not in Harlem.